Latest / The Catholic Current / The Revenge of Amoris Laetitia (Eamonn Clark) 8/25/26

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The Revenge of Amoris Laetitia (Eamonn Clark) 8/25/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert
0:04
McTague. I've told couples too who are not living together but
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are also not chaste, said what you're saying to your future spouse is, look at
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me, I can't be trusted. Look at me, I'm willing
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to defy Christ. Now pledge yourself to
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me body and soul. That's drilling holes in the bottom of
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the boat before it launches, isn't it? Yes, it is. You know,
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the only secure way of being close to God is by avoiding sin.
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Sin and living virtue.
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague
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of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring
0:41
Christ to the world and the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the
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Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio
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mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
0:52
As always, let's start with prayer. In the name of the Father, Son,
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and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, through the intercession of Saint Ignatius
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Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit
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of discernment might hear your voice and obey your command. In the name of the
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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well,
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friends, we are coming up on the 10th anniversary of
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a famous Roman document, Amoris Laetitia, which has
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to do with married life and, and love and so on. And now
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that we are synodaling like we've never synodaled before,
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there's going to be a meeting on families, and my goodness,
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is there going to be listening. And I find
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that a cause for anxiety, and I'm pleased to say that I'm not
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alone. We have a new guest here with us today. He's a licensed moral theologian,
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a doctoral student at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas
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Aquinas in Rome. Uh, Eamon Clarke, welcome to The Catholic Current.
1:49
Thank you so much, Father. Glad to be here. I mean, I want to tell
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you a story. I, I used to live and work in parishes, and I had
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a custom on Sundays when there— Easter Sundays, where there'd be lots
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of unfamiliar faces, and I would just remind people
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who hadn't been a while that, number one, how to receive Holy
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Communion, and number two, who may
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receive Holy Communion. I would go, you baptized Catholic, in a state of grace,
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etc., etc. And then I add, and you have to be
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in a marriage that's recognized by the Church.
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Now, after Mass, a few people would thank me, but a number
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of people would get in my face, yell at me, tell me I was making
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it up. I've been Catholic my whole life, Father, and I've never
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heard of that. I went to Catholic school, you know. And I said, well,
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yeah, so did Martin Luther. Or so, so what?
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But I think that this misunderstanding of the
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nature of marriage and marriage and being
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in a state of grace or not might become absolutized
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with our present movement in the direction of
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synodality and listening facilitated by Amoris Laetitia.
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Am I overinterpreting the, the data? Am I
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misinterpreting it? Or in light of your own research and reflection, do you think I
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might be onto something? I think you're on to something. I think this is authentic
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Jesuit discernment here. Oh, good.
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This is— the parish reality is very, very,
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very grim, at least in the West, over this issue. You know,
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in other parts of the world, they deal with sometimes the opposite sort of issue
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where, you know, a man has several women, and, you know,
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it's a totally different set of issues. And I've been to, you know,
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place that I was in Central Africa, you know, and I'm heading out to Papua
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New Guinea in some weeks. And these are totally different realities. Um,
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just to contextualize the fixation on— I
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hesitate to say it, but a bit of a champagne problem where,
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you know, we, we have this, uh, this obsession with
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our, our own will, uh, creating our own, our own
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kind of boutique reality. You know, doing whatever
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we want with marriage so that we can fulfill our own existential desires.
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Whereas in other parts of the world, it's we want to have children, but they
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just keep dying. And, you know, the reality is very,
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very different. So, right, it helps to put a little bit
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of perspective on what we're dealing with. Not that it's not painful and difficult and
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a real problem, but it's not the same problem that other people
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deal with. It seems that there has been a an ongoing cultural
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shift. I mean, my parents died
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in 2004. They were married 53 years,
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and they said to me, you know, our only option was to
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make it work because we stood at the altar and God made promises and we
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made promises and we had only one option, which is to make it work.
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And that's very, very different from today. In my college
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years, nearly every wedding I attended of friends
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ended in divorce within 3 years. And I want to add
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to that, there is the— there's a misunderstanding of
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annulments, which I think we'll get to into the next section. But the
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current question now, and especially what's facing the
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West, is, gosh, you've got so many people
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who were married in the Church, got a civil divorce,
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haven't done anything regarding an annulment—
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and I'll talk— we'll talk about that in the next segment— and then have married
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civilly or in another church. And ordinarily, you know, my parents'
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generation, they said, hey, this, this isn't a real marriage.
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You're living in sin. You're not in a state of grace. You can't receive
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Holy Communion. And now lots of people seem to be saying,
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well, but, but maybe sort
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of kinda. I know, let's listen,
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and especially people who have the right kind of lived experience.
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And to quote Cardinal Wuerl, what we're trying to change is not the teaching
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but the practice. What's going on here on your view? Sure.
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It's sort of, it relates to the first temptation
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of the Lord in the desert. You know, just turn the stones to bread.
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Like, you can do it. Like, you can do it. But the response
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is, as you know, man does not live by bread alone, by every word
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that comes from the mouth of God. And God has in fact delivered a teaching
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about this precise issue. And Maybe you can try
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to turn the stones to bread and, you know, just try to get along and
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hope that you're ignorant enough, hope that your situation is difficult enough that
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it somehow slips into footnote 351 in the late Holy Father's
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apostolic exhortation. You know, I don't think it's a very good strategy.
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I think it's better to simply own your mistakes and
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repent of them and turn towards Jerusalem, as difficult as it
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could be, and will be for many people. But marriage is
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a sacrament of hope, and yes, we need to hang on to that.
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See, that's one of the things I liked about your essay,
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and I really— we'll put it in the show notes, and I do encourage all
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the listeners to give it a good close read, because what the
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Church teaches about marriage, what it can be liberating and a cause for
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holiness, etc., it's very challenging and very demanding.
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And to live it, especially if you've made a very significant
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error, can require a great deal of
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virtue, starting with a commitment
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to, to the truth. I also think that one of the reasons we're in the
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trouble that we're in is because we think that marriage is primarily
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private and primarily sacramental—
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excuse me, sentimental,
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primarily romantic— and that the church
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is involved because it's a nice backdrop for the photographs,
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and it doesn't have anything to do about symbolizing the
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relationship between Christ and his church. We got about 3 minutes left in this segment.
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Can you talk about the sacramental symbolism that is ruptured
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with divorce? Oh, sure. It would be like Christ abandoning the church,
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you know, if the sedevacantists were correct. You know,
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there's, there's no more, no more protection of the church.
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Christ is kind of gone, you know, and even worse than that,
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he simply abandoned us. There's no longer grace flowing
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through the sacraments. There's no longer the protection of truth around the
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See of St. Peter. He's just gone. And, you know, maybe he'll
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change his mind and come back. But yeah, that rupture would be profound
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and it would make no sense. The two are one flesh to be
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fruitful, right? That's the Church. That's the mystery of marriage in
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its epitome in its formal, or rather
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exemplary cause, excuse me, exemplary cause, Christ and the
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Church. But yeah, I mean, the sacraments, when it's really
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a real sacramental marriage consummated, completely legitimate,
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it lasts until death. And this is revealed.
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It is very, very clear from the Gospels and from the Church's interpretation
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of them. There is no getting around it. And maybe we'll talk in the next
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section about what annulments are and how that plays into that. Right. We can't
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have our fingers crossed behind our back. And, you know,
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we live in a culture that doesn't understand
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commitment, that doesn't understand promises,
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and treats revelation as
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negotiable, that it's something that, you know, if we
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just are clever enough and really
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strain to hear, and here I quote, the Spirit, never really specifying
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which Spirit. Then, you know, I'll put— I'll summarize this way
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as we come up to the break. People are saying, well, what is the Holy
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Spirit saying now? And I said, well, what has the timeless
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Spirit, Holy Spirit, already said?
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And it is embedded in the nature of
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the one church Christ founded that the
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marital relationship is to be a
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reminder, a harbinger, a symbol
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a pointing to of Christ's fidelity
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to his church. And if it's something that
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can be swapped out like you're swapping out a pair of shoes
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or, or a coat, then Christ's
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fidelity to his church and what the church owes
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Christ, that just goes by the wayside.
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Then we're spiritual orphans and we don't
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have hope. So I think we're tinkering with things at
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the level of zeros and ones, and we don't have any
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idea of what we're messing with,
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and the results could be catastrophic. Friends, when we come back, we're going
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to continue our conversation with, uh,
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theologian, uh, Eamon Clarke, and we're going to be talking
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about the revenge of amoris laetitia, how a misunderstanding
11:09
of marriage may become institutionalized,
11:13
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My guest today is Eamon Clarke. He is a moral theologian.
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We're talking about Amoris Laetitia and worsening
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misunderstandings of marriage, especially its indissolubility.
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Amen. I'm sure you've seen this too, and it's not said in so
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many words, although sometimes it is, an analogy that runs like this:
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well, the world has divorce,
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the Church has annulment.
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And I've even seen people use annulment as a
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transitive verb. Father, how much does it cost to have your
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marriage annulled? As if somehow you were going to the Division of Motor Vehicles
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to have your driver's license canceled. How did we get here? And how does
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that affect our understanding of the
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properly pastoral approach to people in difficult
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marriages? Yeah, I think it really goes back to what
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you were mentioning on the first segment about losing, losing a
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sense that marriage is about the community rather than about one's own personal
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lifestyle. So if you buy a car, you can get
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a new car. You can get rid of the car and buy a new car.
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It's not that way with marriage. It's a different kind
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of thing. And actually, ironically, I use the example of
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the car. I argue in a book that I wrote on natural family planning,
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which sometimes gets called Catholic contraception. It's a very good analogy,
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actually. It's an annulment issue. I really think that the advent
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of mass transit, as strange as it sounds, I think the invention of the car
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really started to change the way that people think about marriage because
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suddenly you don't need to plan travel. You can just go anywhere.
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You don't need to look for a spouse inside of your own
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little neighborhood or your own town. You can go anywhere
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and be essentially anonymous, right? And so you can look for your
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soulmate. And so we have this, and then the war kind of distracted
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everyone. Everyone was, you know, buckling down in the 1940s and then the
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'50s, everyone relaxes. And then we have the 1960s and everything explodes
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with John Rock, his invention of the pill, and also
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his invention of artificial fertility mechanisms.
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Same guy who invented this, a nominal Catholic. Okay.
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And from there it went into no-fault divorce and then
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into abortion and then into stranger,
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newer things— gay marriage, transsexuality. Sexual issues. You can see the progression.
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Sure. Starting with easy contraception, then no-fault
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divorce, because if, if marriage is not about having children to raise
15:34
them for the community and for God, well, then it's just about my own personal
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fulfillment. And then if I make a mistake, quote unquote, I need to
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fix it, quote unquote. So we had Roe v. Wade, and then
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we started to deny biology because there's only so
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far you can go before you get to that point. So that sort of sets
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the context for for why people really struggle to understand
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that marriage is actually forever, especially sacramental marriage.
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It's forever until death. So that's why I think people struggle
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with the idea of an annulment rightly understood.
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Right. Now, to be clear, an annulment
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doesn't undo a marriage because only death
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can make a marriage stop. An annulment
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is a process undertaken by the Church to ascertain whether
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or not something indispensable was
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missing prior to the exchange of consent.
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For example, you know, if you were ordained or you were in religious
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vows or you were already married to somebody else or you
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had a gun to your head so you couldn't freely give consent,
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that would be— and, you know, in the old Code of Canon Law,
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the annulments were really rare because the
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grounds for annulment was so objective,
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like, hey, you know, she's a cloistered nun, of course she can't get married.
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Where now it's in the 1983 Code of Canon Law,
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it's, it's a lot more squishy, if you will,
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uh, psychological, I think they would call it now.
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And so the annulment industry has exploded,
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where, you know, worldwide there would just be a few hundred
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annulments per year. It's thousands and maybe even
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in the tens of thousands, uh, in the United States
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every year. So there's been a comprehensive misunderstanding of annulment.
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I want to give you an example of how it's embedded in the culture and
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then get your opinion on it. My good friend Pete came home from work
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one day and his wife announced, everything wrong in my life is you,
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so I'm leaving. And she was in such a hurry to leave that
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she left her minor children with Pete. He had to
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agree to a civil divorce so that he could get support
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payment from his wife for, for the kids.
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And I was on the other side of the country, couldn't be with him,
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so he was with the young associate pastor in the parish in
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his office sobbing as he's signing the state forms.
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And before the ink had dried on the state forms, young father
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being pastoral, quote unquote, whips out paperwork
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to start an annulment process because, and here I quote,
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God wants you to be happy, so it's time to move on.
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How many different things went wrong before that scenario
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took place? Wow. Yeah, that's, that's, that's terrible. I,
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I have very little exposure. I have a little exposure, but not much to,
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uh, tribunal work, and, and it's hard work. Uh, but yeah, the philosophy
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that I was taught was We really need to stop the train wreck before it
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happens rather than try to put the train back on the tracks. So it's
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why I'm really eager eventually when I have a
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moment is to build a really good
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tool for pastors, for parish priests especially, to form couples
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who are engaged. And one of the goals of that program
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should be to get them to break up before they enter into a marriage,
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a real one or a putative one only. That then turns
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into a disaster that they regret? Right. I— well,
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gosh, there are so many things that need to be said. You know, I talk
19:17
a lot about promoting religious vocation and priestly vocations. And,
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you know, you need to have— well, you need to have people having
19:24
children. That's a big part of the reasons why we're in the vocation stricture
19:29
that we're in. And also, you need good role models. And that's
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not only true for priestly life and religious life. It's also
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true for family life. Well. There are not
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a lot of good role models these days, and there doesn't seem to be much
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in the way of really careful preparation.
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There's very often little, if any,
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discussion to, hey, you know, you're living together, that's a really bad
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idea, right? Or to talk about, you know, what the primary purpose
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of marriage is, etc., etc. What can be
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done at the parish level to and maybe even at the
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familial level to, like I said,
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get it right the first time rather than try
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to fix the mess after the train wreck happens.
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Yeah, I think, I think drilling, drilling the point home that
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no one's ever regretted having any of their children except
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people who we can publicly call monsters, right? Yeah, there's a
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good recent example on the news of that, right? Yes.
20:33
Yeah. And I think just getting people really,
20:37
really excited about raising kids to be good
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citizens, and then also to be saints, and just getting them
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really, really, really excited about that, and pointing them
20:49
towards that good thing that is really, you know, the point of the marriage.
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And then just trying to get them to move towards
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that in a well-ordered way, presenting that positive good,
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which, you know, I don't have a lot of parish experience
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around this issue, but My sense is that it's
21:08
a lot of like, let's try to get you to do the least bad
21:12
thing and let's just try to check some boxes and not, not ruffle
21:15
too many feathers and just kind of get it over with. And then we'll
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see you maybe when your child is baptized and then maybe
21:23
when, you know, it's your funeral. Right. And that's not
21:26
good. Right. You know, I, a couple I know went to their, to their
21:31
parish priest for marriage preparation. And the first thing he said to them is,
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please don't tell me anything that I don't want to know. Gosh.
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Well, you've just kind of punted on your
21:43
responsibility as a priest and as a pastor,
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and I was really appalled by that.
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I think we have to reassert that the primary
21:54
end of marriage is the begetting and education of children
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to raise them up to be saints and citizens of heaven,
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and that everything else follows from that.
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But instead, we live in a culture that seems
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to see children as an accessory,
22:15
as a lifestyle choice, or maybe even an
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afterthought. And we haven't really—
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the Church hasn't done a lot to disabuse people of those
22:27
errors, has it? In recent years, at least.
22:30
No, though to Francis's credit, he really several
22:34
times, I think, yelled at people who wanted pets instead
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of kids. So we can thank him for that quip. Okay.
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But yeah, I definitely think, again,
22:47
just emphasizing how cool it is to be a parent and how
22:51
great a reward it is to do that well. That's, that's something
22:55
that I would like to see more of. Gosh, yes. And admitting that
22:59
also it really is hard. And, you know, if you want
23:03
to build a fire, you've got to start with kindling. I would like to
23:06
see an effort in parishes for
23:10
families to get to know one another. I think a lot of our parishes are
23:13
treated as kind of the drive-through sacramental ATM.
23:17
And if we recognize each other at Mass, it's the way you recognize
23:21
someone who's in line at the 7-Eleven while you're going to pick up
23:26
a six-pack on the way to a party. We kind of shop at
23:30
the same place. But we don't have an investment in
23:34
each other. So I think that there are steps that need to be taken for
23:39
families to get to know each other and to support each other
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because, you know, as kids get older and there's conflict, especially in the teen
23:46
years, and if you're really trying to hold the line on Catholic
23:51
morality, you know, you're a minority as parents.
23:54
You're the oddball. But if the kid grew up
23:58
in a network of families where all of the
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parents that he knew of were on the same page in terms of faith and
24:05
morals, I think life would be a lot easier and
24:09
a lot more fruitful for, for everyone. But that means living
24:13
parish life not at the mere minimum.
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And, you know, we've got to reteach certain things. And one
24:21
of the precepts of the Church, one of the things that's a non-negotiable
24:26
is the indissolubility of marriage.
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And in my experience in parishes,
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there are lots of folks who on their own account,
24:36
they didn't know. So quote unquote,
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things didn't work out the first time, and then I met this wonderful
24:44
individual and we got married at City Hall. And now here we
24:47
are all these years later with a handout for Holy Communion after
24:52
5 said something awkward. I think in the next segment we need to talk
24:56
about what happens when people figure out the hard truth. Friends,
25:00
when we come back, we're going to continue our conversation with moral theologian Ammon Clark.
25:03
We're talking about marriage and its misunderstandings
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friends. The Catholic Current is podcasted wherever you enjoy listening: Apple
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Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, TuneIn, and the iCatholic
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Radio mobile app. Praise be Jesus
26:21
Christ. This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for
26:25
the Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
26:28
You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local radio station,
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Here on The Catholic Current, we engage issues seriously and faithfully,
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and that intellectual freedom exists because we are listener-funded.
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Support us at thestationofthecross.com. My guest today
26:56
is moral theologian Eamon Clarke. We're talking about misunderstandings
27:00
regarding marriage. So it is beyond dispute that
27:04
one of the precepts of the Church is that you have to respect
27:07
the Church's teaching on marriage, including its
27:11
indissolubility. Now, in the world we
27:14
live in, here's a very frequent problem.
27:19
A couple gets married in the Church, and then I'm told it didn't
27:23
work out, whatever that means. There was a civil divorce.
27:27
Uh, one of the parties meets somebody else,
27:31
gets married civilly. They've been together
27:35
for years. They might have produced children. And then here comes Father
27:39
McTague on Easter Sunday saying, if you're going to receive
27:43
Holy Communion worthily, you have to be in a marriage recognized
27:48
by the Church. Otherwise, you, you can't,
27:52
because objectively you're, you're living in a state of,
27:55
of grave sin. And you can imagine the
27:59
pushback I've gotten on that. But what if someone sits
28:03
down and says, gosh, no one ever explained that to me
28:06
before. Father is right. The Church does
28:10
teach that. And oh, Father explained to me why the
28:14
Church does teach that. It is good and true. I made
28:19
a big mess. What's the next step?
28:23
Yeah, gosh, first of all, it's— one has to acknowledge the difficulty of these
28:28
situations, you know. Absolutely. It would be like, you know,
28:31
accidentally walking into Afghanistan or, or some kind
28:35
of place like this and then being asked, are you a Christian?
28:38
You know, what are you going to do? Well, now suddenly you, you have
28:42
the grace being given to you by God to, to be a martyr.
28:45
He's giving you that grace right now. And maybe you fail,
28:49
but it can't be denied that God is providing the grace
28:53
that you need in order to do what he demands of you morally.
28:58
And so I think that's also got to be acknowledged
29:02
is that it's very difficult, but it is possible. And so those are
29:06
the 2 foundational principles, I think, is, yes,
29:09
acknowledging that the cross is the cross, but also that
29:13
it's possible to carry and it brings redemption if it's carried well.
29:17
Right. So let's be clear. God our Lord does not command
29:21
the impossible. He's not a jerk and
29:25
he's not a trickster. And he does always provide for his
29:28
will. And his will is that we live and die as
29:32
saints. And participating in grave
29:35
sin and then justifying it is not the path to sainthood.
29:40
Uh, it just isn't. So if you find yourself
29:44
in an irregular situation— I think we can still call
29:48
it that— and let's just say you, you really didn't know
29:52
because lots of people failed to be salt and light for
29:55
you. You didn't know, and then you realize, oh my gosh,
30:00
I, I have to, I have to find a way to make
30:03
this right. So, you know, you're a moral theologian.
30:06
I'm more of a metaphysician myself. So, but let's walk through
30:10
this process together. First thing to do is you've got to live
30:15
as a brother and sister, right? In other words, you can't have sex anymore because
30:19
the presumption is that at least one of you is already
30:23
married to somebody else. That's the first
30:28
step, isn't it? Yes, yes. And the key there is justice.
30:32
Like, the thing that always gets missed in the discussions
30:36
about being merciful and accompanying is, what about the other person who
30:40
maybe doesn't agree with the take that someone
30:44
is presenting about themselves? And maybe they say, he left me,
30:47
he abandoned me, He left me with the children. I'm in very
30:51
serious trouble because of his irresponsibility. And now he wants
30:55
to say, oh, no, but it's very difficult. You know,
30:59
this is why we have an objective, albeit imperfect,
31:02
court system to adjudicate these things so that there's justice
31:06
for the people involved, not simply mercy, but also justice,
31:10
giving people what they are actually owed. Right. And,
31:13
you know, as a matter of justice,
31:17
the first marriage has to be respected, and it has to— that bond
31:21
has to be presumed to exist and be indissoluble
31:26
unless and until the church says, at the end of a
31:30
process of a finding of nullity, that the
31:34
marriage never existed in the first place. So if you
31:38
find yourself in an irregular marriage situation,
31:40
step 1 is to— you have to
31:44
agree to live as brother and sister. And step
31:47
2 is is you've got to go to the church and say,
31:51
can there be a finding of nullity?
31:55
And let's— can you walk us through? We're not just talking about, oh gosh,
31:59
you know, I got to go to the DMV because I let my license
32:03
expire, or, oh, I, I got to write to the
32:06
State Department to renew my passport. This isn't just
32:10
about keeping your paperwork up to date for your library card, is it?
32:13
No, this is, this is a reckoning with the meaning of your life as someone
32:17
who has decided to enter into a relationship
32:21
ordained by God for the good of the community and for the church,
32:26
where you stood before God and said, I will be with you until my dying
32:30
days, and then you decided, I'm not going to do that.
32:34
So it's really a self-reckoning, and it's a moment to say,
32:38
honestly, I did something wrong, and maybe it could
32:41
be fixed and end up in,
32:44
let's say, a palatable or tasteful situation for me in the end,
32:48
But it's a reckoning. It's a reckoning with the meaning of your life and your
32:52
relationships in your life in light of Christ. Right. You know, and the church
32:56
might say, no, you're, you really are married and
33:01
you're married to this other person.
33:04
Then what happens? Clarified for you that that's the will of God for you.
33:08
And this is what gets lost is people think it's a burden.
33:11
It's freeing. It frees you. You now know what the good
33:15
thing is. You don't have to discern. You don't have to listen.
33:19
It's been announced to you by an authority that you can trust,
33:22
right? That you're obliged to listen to. And then there has
33:26
to be some attempt at reconciliation,
33:30
some attempt of rapprochement, and you have
33:33
to admit that you've been living as husband and wife with
33:37
someone for whom you could never have been a spouse.
33:41
Correct. That gets complicated.
33:44
That gets hard. Now, I've never been a parish pastor, which all
33:48
my friends who are parish pastors remind me of frequently.
33:53
What is the role of the parish priest in this process? Well,
33:57
he's got to be sensitive to,
34:00
you know, the fallout of something like this happening, but he also
34:04
has to be sensitive to his own duties to encourage
34:08
someone to pick up their cross and carry it. You know, the foil here is,
34:12
is Saint Peter at Caesarea Philippi telling the Lord, you don't
34:16
need to suffer. That's, that's not for you. We're going to make sure that,
34:19
that that's okay. You know, you don't need to do that. And the
34:23
rebuke is, is pretty, is pretty severe. Right? Right.
34:26
You know, it says, get behind me, Satan. And you can think back to
34:30
the, to the temptation in the desert with the stones and bread.
34:34
You're thinking like men. Not like God. Right. God sees past
34:38
these things and, and wants, wants your glory through the cross that he
34:42
has given to you. And right, sometimes we, we help make
34:46
our own cross by getting ourselves into bad situations.
34:49
But he always is giving us a way out, even if it's very painful.
34:53
And so the parish priest needs to communicate these things delicately and tactfully,
34:57
but he does need to communicate them. Right. And I think we have
35:00
to be clear about what the church teaches. I want
35:04
to draw an analogy real quick. Uh, I was a new priest and I preached
35:09
at a friend's wedding. And at the reception, when everyone had had enough
35:13
to drink where they thought they could dance well in public, I'm sitting at the
35:16
table by myself and this young woman sits down next to me and she says,
35:19
well, you know, I've been married 3 years and I've been on the pill all
35:23
that time, and I'm going to start another package of pills tonight unless you
35:27
have something to say to me. And we talked for an hour.
35:31
And at the end of the hour, she threw out her pills and I went
35:35
out into the parking lot and heard her confession. Gave her absolution.
35:38
And I said to my seminarians, now, how did that happen? I said, well,
35:41
first of all, I prayed to be ready to meet somebody like that.
35:46
Number 2, I paid attention in moral theology class. And number 3,
35:49
on my own, I, a humanities major, went to the library
35:53
and learned the science of contraception. Isn't it the case
35:56
that pastors have to be informed
36:00
really well about the nature of marriage, the laws
36:04
regarding marriage, And also things like,
36:07
you know, contraception and natural family planning and
36:12
cultural influences on divorce and remarriage. So it's
36:16
not only the couple that has to attain the levels of sanctity.
36:20
It's up to the clergy too, isn't it? Absolutely. And, you know,
36:23
I've kind of been feeling out this project I have on
36:27
a— I've been calling it Advanced Marriage Prep. And I think
36:31
it's gonna be very, very helpful for priests who are preparing couples
36:34
and and working with couples who may not be in good
36:38
situations, you know, because if you're a parish priest, you have 1,000
36:43
things to worry about, 1,000 things to do, and it's really important
36:47
to have a good set of materials that you can look to, you can
36:51
draw from, and you can rely on. So I am slowly working
36:55
on something like that that I hope will bear a lot of fruit in
36:59
the parishes of America and around the world. No, I, I hope
37:03
so too. And I want to emphasize, you know, because you, you go through a
37:06
list of virtues that someone is going to have to
37:10
acquire to live marriage well, and then especially if
37:15
you realize you made a very grave error.
37:18
And you talk about, uh, temperance,
37:21
fortitude, justice, prudence, faith, hope,
37:24
charity. I think that's true for clergy
37:28
as well, because you may have to really cowboy
37:32
up and say hard things.
37:36
Now, usually what would happen when I was at a parish and I would just
37:40
remind people what the church has always taught about marriage, inevitably a
37:44
crowd of people would run to the pastor and say, hey,
37:48
the priest with the beard gave me bad feels from the
37:52
pulpit. Bully him so he doesn't give me bad feels anymore.
37:56
And I'm pleased to say that no No pastor ever threw
37:59
me under the bus. So props to those guys.
38:03
On the other hand, how was it that these guys were pastors for
38:08
a year and they themselves never said
38:12
what I had said from the pulpit? We got about 2 minutes left here.
38:16
Can you give a word of encouragement to a priest who might be hesitant to
38:20
tell the fullness of truth? Yeah, gosh, I mean, just like marriage is
38:23
not a lifestyle, The priesthood is not either. And, you know, I've lived
38:27
with, I don't know, hundreds of priests. It's easy to cut corners.
38:32
It's easy to just kind of get along and keep your head down and wait
38:36
for the right time. And we sometimes see bishops do this too. They're just waiting
38:40
for the right moment to finally speak their full mind,
38:44
and then they retire and they never do. And the older you
38:48
get, the more you play these kinds of games and sort of lie to yourself
38:52
that the right time is coming to do it. The right time might be now.
38:55
Not to be brash and, and, you know,
38:58
foolish about it, but sometimes you just have to say things that are really
39:02
going to upset people. And you have your own cross to carry as a priest,
39:05
but God will help you carry it. Right, right. I mean, eventually you
39:09
have to decide really truly whether or not the truth
39:13
will— what will set you free. And then we have to
39:16
act accordingly. And not only does God provide the grace,
39:20
God is watching not only what we do and say,
39:24
but what we fail to do and fail to say when we should.
39:27
Uh, Eamon Clarke, thank you for a fascinating conversation.
39:31
God bless your, your very good work. I hope you, you finish your degree soon,
39:35
and I look forward to our next conversation. Thank you, Father.
39:39
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTaggart, your host here every day on The Catholic Current.
39:42
You know what it is today? Today is a Timely Tuesday, and you know
39:46
what that means you want to stay with us for the rest of the hour
39:48
because in the next segment coming up next is you and me sharing timely
39:53
thoughts reflecting on what we've heard today. Be part of the
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41:01
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Want to suggest suggest a guest or a future topic,
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41:22
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
41:25
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:28
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of Cross Studios,
41:31
your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app.
41:35
We proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
41:39
Here we are, the last segment of a Timely Tuesday. You know what that means—
41:42
you and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting on what we've heard today.
41:46
My guest was Eamon Clarke, a moral theologian who's
41:49
studying in Rome, and we were talking some hard
41:53
things regarding marriage, divorce,
41:56
so-called remarriage, etc. And we've laid out a
42:01
very high and demanding standard for people living
42:05
in a culture that doesn't support that
42:09
very high and demanding standard.
42:12
And there seem to be people, members of the Catholic Cadres
42:16
of the People Who Should Know— Really Know Better Club, up to and
42:21
including senior members of the Catholic Cadres
42:25
of the People Who Should Really Know Better Club, said if we just have enough
42:29
words and enough listening,
42:32
maybe we can find a workaround against
42:37
the indissolubility of marriage.
42:40
That is not of God. God will not and
42:44
cannot bless it because it is contrary
42:47
to his nature. There is no lie in
42:51
Christ, and that you are
42:56
We are recipients of a revelation
43:01
that we didn't make, and that is true
43:04
whether we like it or not, approve it or not, or love it or not.
43:08
But it is a revelation that is for our good
43:13
and that can set us free and lead us to very high
43:18
sanctity and the happiness of heaven.
43:22
On the condition that we live it with God's grace.
43:25
So, um, we've got some work to do.
43:30
If you're a pastor in a parish, you got to ask yourself,
43:34
what do I do in terms of my preaching to
43:38
let people know the truths about
43:41
marriage, its indissolubility, the impermissibility
43:45
of abortion and contraception,
43:49
the very grave sin of cohabitation
43:53
before marriage, the high expectations of
43:57
chastity within marriage, the purposes
44:01
of marriage. All those things have to be taught
44:05
clearly and boldly and frequently.
44:10
Now, what about parents? Uh, you've got
44:14
to raise your children letting them know that number one,
44:18
marriage is hard. And you know, that's— you
44:22
can hardly avoid teaching that lesson. But that it's
44:26
also, it's a path to happiness and to sanctity,
44:30
and certainly to sanctity. I mean, my parents were married 53
44:34
years, and by their own account, as human
44:39
as anyone else. And you know what? I never saw a
44:43
couple who had reverence for each
44:47
other as spouses the way that my parents did. So when
44:50
I started working in parishes and meeting married
44:54
couples and listening to them and so on, I was disturbed,
44:58
disturbed, even scandalized at the brutal
45:03
way that spouses would talk to each other and about each
45:08
other. And The impression I got from people
45:11
was, well, we're married, so I have a right to
45:15
dump my trash on this person. And, and that's
45:19
not okay. If you're married,
45:23
you are partners with each other for one another's salvation.
45:28
When Blessed Karl of Austria was engaged,
45:32
he said, and I'm paraphrasing, He said to his
45:36
fiancée, and now we have to spend our lives working
45:41
to get each other to heaven. In which case,
45:44
it really is incongruous, not to mention scandalous and destructive
45:49
and blasphemous, to treat each other like dirt. That is not
45:53
okay. I do believe that to
45:56
live the high calling of marriage and family life,
46:00
frequent confession is your best friend.
46:04
One of the first Jesuits I met was the late Father Chuck Gallagher, who was
46:08
a founder of Marriage Encounter, and he too had said that,
46:12
you know, if you're married, your best friend is to go to frequent confession.
46:16
And people would complain, but oh Father, I don't go to confession anymore
46:20
because I don't know what to say. And he said without hesitation,
46:24
ask your spouse.
46:29
Oh, well, that's different, isn't it? And also,
46:33
so parents, you've got to show your kids that there
46:37
is a nobility in perseverance.
46:41
When my parents, in their early 60s, younger than I am now,
46:46
my mother had heart surgery,
46:49
and a few days after the heart surgery, she had
46:53
a stroke. And then a year after the stroke,
46:57
she had a mastectomy.
47:01
And a handful of years after the mastectomy,
47:04
she had a second stroke. And my father retired
47:08
early and spent the last 15 years of
47:12
his life as her caregiver.
47:16
You can't fake that. That involves
47:20
a showing up every day, whether you
47:24
feel like it or not. And it was hard.
47:29
Of course it's hard.
47:32
But he wouldn't have chosen to be anywhere else.
47:37
And my father said he only wanted to live 5 minutes
47:41
longer than my mother. He just wanted to make sure that she
47:45
was okay, and that she didn't
47:49
need him anymore, and then he could go to God too. In God's
47:53
providence, my father died first, and my mother
47:56
just couldn't live without him and died 4
48:00
months after. What's the moral of the
48:04
story for all of us? Friends, truth really
48:07
is on our side. God our Lord does intend
48:12
our good. He does intend
48:16
our holiness. He does want to give us infinite
48:20
and everlasting joy.
48:24
And because we live in a fallen world that we ourselves
48:28
broke, we have to enter heaven through the narrow
48:32
gate, and we have to enter the narrow gate carrying our
48:36
cross. And that cross may include, for some of us,
48:41
for many of us, some very difficult conversations
48:46
about marriage and an attempt at a second
48:51
or third marriage. This is
48:55
a hard conversation to have if you need to have it.
48:58
It'll require a lot of grace, a lot of humility,
49:02
a lot of friendship, and real pastoral
49:07
accompaniment, which means a priest who knows he has to face God
49:10
someday, offering you the sacraments and the truth and
49:14
friendship. This is what we need. So I
49:19
think of Pam Stenzel, the best chastity speaker I've ever heard. She said, you know
49:23
what the biggest problem in my marriage is? I'm in it. When you've
49:26
got 2 sinners living together under one roof,
49:30
there's going to be conflict and there's going to be challenge. And my
49:34
goodness, if you stick with it and cooperate with God's grace,
49:37
humanly speaking, there will be joys and happiness,
49:41
and there will be opportunities for sanctification,
49:46
for holiness, for meeting Christ.
49:50
It is worth the effort. Let's begin by
49:53
telling one another the truth. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague,
49:57
your host here every day of The Catholic Current. Join us tomorrow for
50:01
another episode of The Catholic Current. Great guests, great a great conversation, because that's
50:05
how we roll here every day at the Station of the Cross and the Catholic
50:10
Current, where we strive mightily to be oh so much
50:14
more than merely relevant.
50:17
After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources
50:21
list, download our audios, podcasts— where you can find audio,
50:25
you can find us. Follow us on your favorite platform, write a 5-star review
50:29
you. Let's take this to the listeners. Let's take it to the whole world.
50:32
Let's do this good work together. Through the intercession of Our
50:35
Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
50:39
Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.